Things Infertility Tried to Steal…

“What if my dream doesn’t come true.”
Things Infertility tried to steal: My Dreams

When I was younger, it wasn’t the names of boyfriends that I scribbled in notebooks. I never doodled little bugs or stick figure people.  No, those were too cliche for a girl like me.  LOL  Whenever I scribbled, I had two habits; treble clefs and other music symbols, and names.  I would draw out the names of what I wanted to use for my future family.  I played around with spellings and pronunciations on blank pages of notebook paper.  Monograms and nicknames.  Lower-case and Upper-case.  I played around with meanings and origins and ideas…

And then I grew up.
And then I got married.
And then,…
Infertility happened.

When infertility happened, I stopped dreaming.
The cease and desist was gradual.  First I stopped joking with my husband about what “his kids” were going to be like.  I saw no point in pretending and joking about something that was becoming very unfunny and serious.  Next, as infertility began to “get more real”, I stopped doodling.  I went so far as to black out the scribbles I stumbled upon in old journals.  I guess, when I think about it, I blacked them out in my mind as well.  They became embarrassing to me.  I felt silly.  I felt like a person with no hands, gushing about a new pair of lace gloves they would never wear.

The idea that having children was not going to be nearly as fast or as easy as I’d once believed, made everything oh, so, serious.  Joking about names and scribbles and dreams was ridiculous and depressing.

By the time the first year passed, I’d stopped thinking of new names.
At the turn of the second year, I’d stopped holding other people’s babies.
Third year…came and went.

And things got quiet…

I began to search for similarities or commonalities with family, but no one talked about this. No one would admit this kind of thing.  So I looked to the world at large and began scouring the web.  But just as I discovered the number of other couples, I felt that familiar seriousness.  I began to create a minority, inside my minority, inside my minority.  I started cataloging the infertility causes, and comparing myself.
Who was having trouble based on PCOS?
Who was having trouble based on thyroid?
Who had money for In Vitro Fertilization?
Who had money for adoption?
Where did I fit?

And things got quieter.
And lonelier.
Without even my scribbles to keep me company.  My mind began to expand the walls of my solitude.
And once again, everything became really, really, serious.
The what-if’s, in my mind began to smother me.
They had changed from:
“What if my son/daughter looks more like their father than they do me”,
to “What if my husband never stops wanting “his own” child?
“What if he blames me?   What if I blame him?  What if we begin to resent one another?”
Those what-ifs, swallowed me whole.  And again, I got quiet. And for the first time, I got scared.
My journey wasn’t resembling anyone else’s.  I had hypothyroidism, but PCOS symptoms.  My husband was diagnosed with diabetes. I endured frightening and lonely exam rooms, ultrasounds of my thyroid and uterus, a painful colposcopy.  I had intrusive exams and questions, mood altering hormonal pills, extended menstrual periods.  Depression, mood swings, rage, despair, and ever-present fear.  I could be in a room with wall to wall people, and feel alone.  Unique.  Set apart. A unicorn.

Somewhere during this time, I began researching and  learning how many African Americans were actually going through the situation I was.  I found very few.  So I began to pull together the ideas and the stoiries I did find.  And something about making this information available to others has been my lash back at the still inconclusive land of my infertility. I haven’t looked back.

Lately, I’ve been feeling like doodling.  Not that anything has really changed.  Not even because I see a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.   I want to doodle and scribble and plan and dream because I realize that my hope and dreaming is part of what makes ME, me.  Being positive and hopeful goes farther than my fertility.  Being me at the end of the day is more important than being Mom at the end of the day. I can hope and dream irregardless of my circumstances and outcomes.

So right now, in my life, as hard as it does get sometimes, I’ve had to make some serious changes.Instead of asking

‘”What if my dream doesn’t come true.”

 

I’m realizing that my real question is:

“What if I’m supposed to encourage myself, and others, that no mattter how things look, we should never stop dreaming?”

 

This year’s National Infertility Awareness Week has been amazing to me.  There have been some truly heartfelt questions and dialog taking place via blogs and Twitter and other social networks this week.
It is my hope that this continues even after Saturday!

For information on how to inform and educate others on infertility now and after NIAW:
http://www.resolve.org/infertility101
For info on the history of NIAW:
http://www.resolve.org/takecharge

I think I’ll go doodle now…

Included in my doodle are the names of dreams who have since been born.
Keep dreaming!